Friday, February 08, 2013

Fatty Tabby 2x4

Which is what I was able to tell myself until a few weeks ago, whence a quick regular trip to the vet informs me that Bubs is ranking at a 4 on the body scale.

I am beautiful, no matter what you say.

For those not in the know, instead of having set weight classes for every kind of critter, there is instead a scale from 1-5 for any given animal to be ranked on, either by a vet or other animal professional (you'll see it come up pretty often on any animal rescue show) wherein you can judge if a cat, dog, horse, what have you, is the proper weight by how defined its waist and rib cage is. This scale helps when you have mutts - Mac couldn't feasibly be ranked on a Doberman or a Labrador scale, because he is neither of those fully. Bubs is -in theory- a Domestic Shorthair cat, but being adopted from a shelter, you never know if there's other things mixed in there, and that would affect how big his body is and how much he should then weigh.

Ideally your critter should be a 3. Anything below is underweight, anything above is overweight. I take Bub and Mac's scores seriously, because keeping them both at a steady 3 is one of the easiest ways to keep them healthy, happy, and part of our lives for as long as possible.

So. Mr. "I'm a 4" is on a diet. Which is not so much a diet as it is just "hey Bub doesn't get to eat everything he wants all the time anymore." The goal is to get him to an even ten pounds. When you only weigh twelve and a half pounds at your heaviest that's a pretty big chunk of body.

In any case, Bubba is less than pleased about this development in his life.

I should have taken a video instead of a photo, but I assure you he is in the middle of telling me off for the sad amount of food in his bowl right here.

I came home from the vet that day and informed the Mister what had transpired. And then we both SUPER nerded out about it.

How you ask?

For Christmas this year, The Mister was gifted a scale*. But it's not just any scale, it's a souped up scale that has separate "accounts" for each user of the scale and can keep track of your weight, BMI, and progress through goals by hooking up with the internet wirelessly.

This magical scale lives in our bathroom.

Now, if you've visited our house, you may know that you're not allowed to use the bathroom by yourself. Ever. Bubba insists on supervising showers or... well anything else really. I don't know why. Personal boundaries have stumped him. The Mister and I allow this, mostly because if we shut him out of the bathroom, he will smash his face into the door and yowl like he' being tortured when all you wanted in the first place was a little quiet time.

You see those little orange paws intruding on me?

The part where this gets nerdy is that Bubba doesn't like to sit on the cold tile floor when he's *ahem* supervising, so he almost always sits on the scale, which usually turns on and weighs the little dude.

You know where I'm going with this - we made Bubba an account with the scale, and I'll be darned if Bubs isn't now entirely in charge of tracking his own progress several times a day.

I think my favorite part of this is, in order to set up an account for him, we had to say he was an 18 year old person who is only 2 feet high.

The scale is constantly concerned about his people BMI.

We are constantly amused.

You're looking more svelte by the day, sir.

Do you have the privilege to be in the bathroom by yourself?

Or do your critters/ kids insist otherwise?

Have you ever put a pet on a diet?

How'd that work out for you?

Tell me in the comments!

*I know this sounds like the lamest gift a wife can give -ever- but I promise you he wanted this thing and was super geeked to get it.

"I think my favorite part of this is, in order to set up an account for him, we had to say he was an 18 year old person who is only 2 feet high. The scale is constantly concerned about his people BMI. We are constantly amused."

Just reading those sentences alone prove to me why I insist on reading your blog EVERY DAY even though we've hung out, what?, once in the last 10 years...